Back To Luther... and the old (German) Missouri Synod. Below are thoughts, confessions, quotations from a Missouri Synod Lutheran (born 1952) who came back to his old faith... and found more treasures than he knew existed in the training of his youth.
The great Lutheran lineage above: Martin Luther, C.F.W. Walther, Franz Pieper.

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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Luther's Chronology, Part 6k (Barr – Annius of Viterbo forgeries)

In the last Part 6j of this series (Table of Contents in Part 1), I reviewed the objections of Professor James Barr († 2006) to biblical chronology based on Barr's demand for extra-biblical information or secular histories a true biblical chronology. As stated before, James Barr seems to be the only theologian / scholar, Lutheran or otherwise, who has even mentioned Luther's Chronikon since the 1960s. Today's world only knows of James Ussher's biblical chronology.
Again, these reviews of Barr make use of his four essays:

In this Part 6k, I will cover Barr's second "gotcha" of Luther's Chronikon - Luther "followed" historical forgeries. I highlight in yellow the pertinent wording and in some cases I follow with some comments of mine directly afterward highlighted in green:

LBC, pg 58: Fundamental to
the understanding of Luther in this period [after the end of the kingdoms] is
his dependence on the literary product of the humanist Annius of Viterbo
(Giovanni Nanni was his real name).... Aware of intense contemporary interest in
the ancient world, and of the sense of loss caused by the disappearance of
numerous important works of ancient authors, Annius removed the problem by writing these works
himself. He had a fertile imagination,
; ... important for Luther, Annius
wrote texts which purported to be by the Mesopotamian Berosus,
the Egyptian chronicler Manetho,
a supposed writer 'Metasthenes'
(there had been an actual Megasthenes
who wrote on Persian affairs), and Philo (a text
which was called the breviarium de temporibus). The significant portions of these are
conveniently printed in the introduction of the Weimar edition (WA,17-21).

LBC, pgs 58-59:

He was aware that 'almost all'
place Alexander about thirty years earlier, but he made it clear that it did
not matter very much to him where Alexander, Antiochus and other persons are
located by historians, so long as he knew the one absolutely vital fact,
namely, the date of the second year of Darius Longimanus, from which point the
490 years of Daniel are reckoned.

This was a cavalier remark, for
Luther was in fact highly dependent on the information that 'historians'
furnished. It was [page 59]
'Metasthenes' who listed the five kings of Babylon from Nebuchadnezzar to
Balthassar (in English normally Belshazzar).
... Luther, however, slightly modified the guidance of 'Metasthenes'
here, for he thought that Jeremiah 27:7 indicated three monarchs rather than
five.

*** Barr carries on as if Annius has Luther by the nose and
leads him down the path of forged imaginations of histories. But even Barr had to admit later (see next quote, LBC, page 59):

LBC, pg 59:

Wild as some of the figures used
by Luther are, it may be felt that they were somewhat closer to the truth than
pure fictions would have been. And this
is so. Although Annius forged the writings of 'Metasthenes'
and 'Philo', he obviously
used within them such pieces of information as humanists of his time had
available, whether from classical sources or from the Bible itself.

*** Too little, too
late Professor Barr. You have already
destroyed any credibility of Annius the forger, and now you want to save a little of his reputation by
claiming his "humanist" knowledge?
Rather it was Luther who said "in the histories, good people by
their ability, their diligence..." and so claimed some ability of the
"historians", even for the "humanists". ***

LBC, pg 60:

The Persian emperors were always a
source of confusion: how many were there, and how often did different names
attach to the same one among them? The
scheme inherited from 'Metasthenes' and followed by Luther was as follows: [Luther's listing of 9 Persian emperors follows]

This is a mixture of partial truth, confusion and total
rubbish; some of it derives from classical sources, some from the poor
understanding of the Persian empire current in Jewish chronological tradition.

*** Barr gets a little red faced
here (total rubbish!) and is on a tirade against Luther's scholarship by trying
to tie it to forgeries... and spouts off about "Jewish chronological
tradition" and "Jewish calendrical reckoning" – rather obscure
reasoning against the Bible's clear indication of "years". Rubbish indeed!... but not Luther's work, rather Barr's anti-biblical stance. ***

LBC, pg 60:

In the Greek period Luther largely follows 'Philo'...

*** Barr continues
his dreams of judging Luther, not only on Luther's scholarship, but also his
theology. ***

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Barr reveals to us a great "gotcha", that not only
did Luther
follow the Talmud, but he also followed forged histories of Annius of
Viterbo. How did Barr get these great
findings? From the editor, F. Cohrs, of
the Weimar Ausgabe (WA)
edition of Luther's Works, printed in 1920 in Germany. We see by this the pivotal role of German
theologian-scholars for today's modern scholars. Barr is pleased that editor Cohrs "conveniently"
included the texts of Annius' writings in the Weimar Ausgabe. Today, the
Wikipedia article on Annius confirms the general opinion that Annius did indeed
forge several histories. But a search
on the Internet finds that John Calvin also used "Metasthenes" in his
commentary on the Book of Daniel.
So the so-called forgeries had some reputation among various scholars of
Luther's time. But Annius' writings
were also being questioned in his day (see
Johann Funck here, page 97). And so
I question Barr's statement of a "fundamental understanding of Luther is
his dependence" on Annius' writings.

What is so difficult for Professor Barr is that anyone
would actually believe the Holy Scriptures to the extent that Luther
did. But Luther's theology was
different than Professor Barr's theology... Luther believed God at His Word,
just like Abraham:

Romans 4:3 – Abraham believed God,
and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

In the concluding post in this series of reviews of Barr, Part 6L, I will cover his grand notion of the "literal intention" of the Bible.

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About Me

I was born into the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church in 1952. After largely throwing off my Christian faith in my youth, the Lord showed me back by his Word. He also showed me the wealth of true teaching in the old (German) Missouri Synod. Hence the above pseudo-name I have chosen.
You may contact me via email postmaster @ franzpieper.com